<Articles>The Black Death in Mamluk Historiography

ITO Takao

doi:10.14989/seinan-asia-kenkyu_94_1

In the middle of the fourteenth century, Afro-Eurasia, particularly the Mediterranean world and Europe, suffered from one of the most disastrous pandemics: the so-called “Black Death.” Since this pandemic had significant economic, social, political, and cultural effects, countless studies on the Black Death that occurred in Europe have been conducted. However, the number of investigations on this and other epidemics in Mamluk Egypt and Syria is much smaller and there is no study yet that surpasses the work of Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton 1977). Although Dols admirably examined various Arabic writings, most of which were still in manuscripts at that time, in order to collect data, he paid little attention to the relationships between these writings. Therefore, this article analyzes the descriptions of the Black Death in Arabic chronicles and epidemic treatises written by contemporary and later authors active in the Mamluk sultanate not only to assess which sources each of them relied on and used, but also to identify those works that were and are considered important. Additionally, this study reveals that differences can have existed between urban and rural areas concerning the impact of the epidemics. As observed, while the pestilence severely damaged cities, such as Damascus and Cairo, it seems that they recovered to some extent by the end of the fourteenth century despite the recurrence of epidemics. In contrast, although the initial damage of the plague in the countryside was probably more limited than some historians described, villages were gradually devastated through the fifteenth century mainly due to the depopulation that subsequently occurred.

<Articles>The Black Death in Mamluk Historiography

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